The Spartacus Business

Spartacus would have understood the mobile industry. The brutal phone market is exemplified by Blackberry’s decision today to set up a committee to investigate options for the company including sale of strategic assets, joint venture or sale.

Only last month, it was said that Microsoft turned down a proposal to buy Nokia’s phone business and this month Huawei said it might buy the Nokia business.

Yet Nokia and Blackberry dominated the phone industry just a few years ago.

The penalty for missing a generation in the smartphone business appears to be summary execution.

The setting up of the committee is being taken as as a sign that Blackberry has already tried, and failed to sell the company.

Last week it was reported that a private equity deal was in the offing.

Microsoft, Lenovo and Huawei are obvious candidates which have, presumably, rejected a deal.

When you’re in a business which depends on the fickle whims of teenagers, you opt for a traumatic ride.

Blackberry should play on security and in particular their encrypted messaging.
Android users understand they are inputs to the digital leech that is Google.
Apple users need expensive gear to feel chic, and worthy.
Developing world need a solid platform, that is not google harvesting apparatus?
Or, go for a scorched earth policy and open-source it as a teaching platform for embeddable systems... and seed the universities with them!